The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition)

by Dusk Peterson

  "Father," said the boy, his voice cold in its conviction, "that is not a lesson I need to be taught."

  The man paused before saying, "No, you are right. You are young and you lack experience, but you have already learned much, and some day you will rule this land well. So take this incident, not as a lesson, but as a reminder that the Chara must act without favor to any man. If the law calls for it, you must use the Sword of Vengeance on those you love, and you must use the Heart of Mercy on those you hate. That is why the empire's people will be placed under your care: because you have the strength to do what hurts you most."

  The boy, when he spoke again, sounded less sure of himself. "All that you say is true, Father: I must rule with fear as well as love. But I love the people, nonetheless, and it is hard for me to stand by and watch one of them abused. If you cannot interfere because this is Lord Carle's slave, could I not buy his slave from him?"

  "You have no money for such luxuries," said the man. "I do not wish to have you making purchases like that until you are old enough to know how to wield money and power and a sword without committing folly in the process. This latest episode does not help to convince me that you yet have enough wisdom."

  Again there was a silence, but this time I did not shrink back into my darkness, for a dim light seemed to linger there, as though something were rising over the horizon of my night sky.

  The boy said, in a voice barely above a whisper, "Please, Father. I have so little, and this is the only great thing I have ever asked of you."

  Some part of me that was beginning to surface out of the darkness was puzzled by this statement, but the man, when he finally replied, seemed to understand what the boy meant. "There has been little I could give you aside from the burden of my title. So, if this will make you happy, it will please me as well. If Lord Carle is willing to sell the slave, I will buy him myself, and have him assigned to work in your chamber. You will be in charge of the slave's discipline and may learn from this the challenge of disciplining an empire. It will be your job, though, to convince Lord Carle to sell the slave. I will not involve myself in that matter."

  "The laws forbid that you should," said the boy, and I realized that he was not exclaiming an oath but making a simple statement.

  "Come, now, I need my sleep, or I will not be able to rise from my bed in the morning. One lesson I hope you learn well is never to keep the people awaiting your word at the Court of Judgment."

  Footsteps fell, and then came silence, but I found I could not drag myself back into the darkness that had been shielding me from the pain. After a minute, I opened my eyes and saw the Chara's son kneeling next to me.

  I whispered, "Thank you."

  He did not reply at once, and as I tried to read his shadowed face, I realized that I had spoken in Koretian. Then he said in the same tongue, "I beg that you impart to me your name."

  "Andrew son of Gideon."

  The last three words came instinctively to my tongue, though they had been beaten from me during my first months of slavery, when I stubbornly insisted that I still possessed a patronymic, as any free boy would.

  The Chara's son showed no surprise at hearing me speak as though I were not a slave; he simply leaned forward. "I am Peter, Lord of the Chara's Palace and Chara To Be." He placed his hand on my arm as though welcoming me into his home, and then let it rest there for a while before saying in a low voice, "Don't worry. I'll return for you soon." He removed his hand, but only in order to pull off his cloak and place it over me.

  Once he had gone, I sunk back into my night sky. But it was no longer dark, for the silver disc of a moon had risen over the horizon.

  Blood Vow 3

  THE LOOK OF THE CHARA

  CHAPTER SIX

  Two hours after Lord Dean had left me gazing at the slave market from the council library, I was looking out of the same window, but my eyes were now on the black border mountains, and a smile was on my lips. I was thinking, not of the land that lay beyond the mountains, but of the night when Peter had joined me at my window vigil.

  My thoughts were cut off abruptly by outcries that flooded into the room like sunlight from a window whose shutters have just been opened. Turning my head, I saw the council porter, with mouth agape, standing at the open library door. Behind him, the thirty lords of the Emorian council were shouting amongst each other.

  The porter rapidly closed the door to the scene. "Heart of Mercy!" he exclaimed. "I thought I had already checked this room. The High Lord will have me up on charges for this."

  I had been sitting atop one of the desks, the only way that I could see through the chest-level window while seated. Now I rose and said, "They've started already? I wasn't paying attention to the time."

  "They have, and it's a closed meeting, as planned. Lord Dean sent all of the council officials away except myself. The Empire of Emor will not be wide enough to hide me once the council finds that you are here."

  He was clutching the rod of discipline that denoted his office, yet his pale face looked anything but confident. I said in an unperturbed manner, "The fault is mine. I will tell Lord Dean so when I see him next."

  Perhaps he had expected me to be as frightened as any other man would be to find himself an unwitting witness to a private council meeting. My deportment, though, must have assured him. He said in a less ruffled manner, "Thank the wisdom of the Charas that it's you, anyway. I heard Lord Carle say once that the Chara might as well make you a council lord since you receive a report on every meeting from the Chara himself. I will have to escort you out now. Perhaps by the time that this meeting is finished, Lord Dean will be too weary to trouble himself with me."

  The council lords were still shouting, and their voices had risen to the point that I could hear some of what they were saying. The porter, mustering his courage, waited until I had joined him and then opened the door into the Council Chamber.

  The enormous chamber was dominated by an oval-shaped table, around which the council lords were placed. At the near end of the table was Lord Dean, presiding over his fellow lords; at the far end was the Chara. Since I had seen him that morning, Peter had changed into his everyday, peasant-brown tunic; pinned at his neck was the emblem brooch he usually wore. He could not wear his formal clothes to the Council Chamber, for at its meetings the council served, not the Chara, but only the law of Emor. The Chara was here as the council's guest.

  He was younger than most of the lords, but his pose had an ageless dignity, which may have originated from the fact that he was sitting calmly while all of the lords were on their feet, shouting in restless fury. As I stepped into the Council Chamber, the shouts cut off suddenly, as though I had intruded on the passionate lovemaking of a newlywed couple.

  Peter's eyes flicked over toward me briefly. Then he rose smoothly to his feet, leaned forward to place his palms on the table, and said to the now-silenced lords, "I am the council's servant in matters where the law requires that I defer to you. In matters where I am the master, I am always happy to receive your advice. But you seem to have forgotten in this case that I am coming to you for your advice, not your orders. I am Commander of the Armies, and it is my duty as Chara to go to the scene of battle whenever war arises, whether to bring destruction or to bring peace. None of you has denied that we are on the verge of war with the Koretians. I must remind you, then, that I am not going to Koretia for the sake of my own pleasure, but because the law demands it. Therefore, the fact that I am going is not a matter which the council may dispute."

  He waited for a moment to see whether any lord would speak, but the room was silent as the porter and I neared the door to the corridor. Changing from the hard voice of a father exacting discipline to the diffident voice of a son asking his elders for help, the Chara added, "Since that matter is settled, I would appreciate your guidance on how I may best deal with the problem that troubles me most in Koretia . . ."

  I did not hear the rest of his speech, for the copper doors of the chamber had boomed
shut behind me. Ignoring the disconcerted looks of the guards flanking the doors, I ducked under their spears and made my way back down the corridor.

  I had intended to return to the Chara's quarters to consult his law books on some questions that remained in my mind. Instead, I found myself lying some time later under the only tree in the inner garden of the Chara's palace, my eyelids closed and ruddy as I tilted my head in the direction of the sun.

  I must have slept. My next awareness was of something soft brushing my arm. I opened my eyes and saw, kneeling by my side, Lord Carle's Koretian slave-girl.

  I stood up with a rapidity that must have frightened the girl, for she rose hastily herself and said, "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir! I just thought that you might have a free-man's weapon that you would be willing to use for me."

  The oddness of this speech gave me a genuine reason to pause and take in the girl's appearance, as best I could in the dim twilight. She was about twelve years of age, on the threshold of womanhood as the people of the Three Lands judge such matters, and her skin was much darker than my own. She had been trained as a slave, for she kept her eyes carefully lowered, but had not been trained for long, for she was standing far closer to me than she ought to have been.

  My silence lingered long enough for her to add hastily, "My master's free-servant sent me to pick some of the roses on the garden trellis, but I cannot pull them off, for they are too tough. It is not for me to ask such a thing, but I do not want to come back empty-handed, and I thought that if you had a dagger, you might be so very kind as to cut one or two of the flowers."

  She stood with one foot slightly behind the other, poised to flee if I treated her as she might expect to be treated after speaking so boldly to a free-man. I had spent fifteen years in the palace, watching as lords plotted against lords, as officials betrayed officials, and as everyone attempted to sway the Chara, so it did not take more than a split second for me to perceive her plan. But I found myself saying, "As you see, I bear no weapon, but I would be happy to help you with the flowers if I can. Where are they to be found?"

  She pointed the way to the rose trellis, which was still gleaming white in the dusk-light. I walked down the slope of the small hill on which the tree was planted, passed through a gate in the stone wall surrounding the garden, and walked over the narrow perimeter of pavement between the garden and the courtyard walls beyond. There, climbing one of the walls, were the white roses; I reached up to pull a bud from off of the vine.

  Looking up at me, the girl said, "Excuse me for asking, sir, but you are Koretian, are you not?"

  "I was born in Koretia." I kept my eyes fixed on the rose, which was proving to be tougher to handle than I had expected.

  "I heard from one of the other slaves that you were once Lord Carle's slave. Is that true, sir?"

  "Yes." I was beginning to wish I bore a free-man's blade; it seemed that I would have no luck pulling the rose out by hand. I sensed rather than saw the girl take a step closer. With a wrench, I pulled the rose out, pricking my finger on a thorn as I did so. I turned, but it was too late; the girl had used the moment to step close to me.

  "I was surprised this morning when I heard you talking to Lord Carle as you did, and that was even before I learned that you were once his slave. It must take great courage to address your former master in such a way. I was . . . stirred by your bravery."

  She took another step forward, brushing past my hand, so that the rose fell to the ground. I opened my mouth to speak, but was cut off by a voice saying, "I would hate to see you waste your efforts here, Levina. If you must seduce your way into a new master's bed, I suggest that you take the trouble next time not to squander your skills on a eunuch."

  Lord Carle had the sort of voice that demanded attention from his slaves, but for a moment before the slave-girl turned from me, I saw the changing expressions on her face.

  First came the surprise. I knew that I could not attribute this solely to my strongly controlled pitch of voice, which had misled more than a few of the palace dwellers. Part of her surprise arose from ignorance. She had no doubt heard back home that a few of the more barbaric Emorians practiced such monstrosities on their slaves, but like most Koretians, she was unlikely to have met a gelded man before. If she had, my boyish appearance would likely have alerted her to what she was facing.

  First the surprise; then came the shock, followed by the anger. And then came the expression I had seen so many times in the past fifteen years that it was forever present in my nightmares: the contempt.

  Then she turned away with fright to face her master. He took little notice of her, but simply jerked his head in the direction of his quarters. When she had gone, he said to me, "Whatever else you may be, you are not a fool, Andrew, so I am unwilling to believe that you were taken in by that act."

  I knelt down to pick up the rose. Without looking up, I said, "I did not want to hurt her feelings. If I had been your slave-girl, I too would have used any means I could to find a new master."

  "I have no doubt that you would have." At his tone, I looked up, but I did not rise from where I knelt. Lord Carle continued, "But whatever your own views on the usefulness of changing from master to master, I would appreciate it if you would not give my slaves the opportunity to test the limits of their loyalty to me."

  I looked back down at the white rose and touched it gently. As I took my fingers away, I saw that the petals were now stained red. I said, "Then you will have to punish the girl. I am sure that your discipline will work on her."

  "It is a pity," said Lord Carle, "that it did not work on you. The Chara might be safer if it had."

  I reached out to touch the rose again, my fingers brushing the velvet petals with restrained gentleness as I said, "The Chara, at least, has nothing to fear from me."

  There was a silence so long that I was sure Lord Carle had gone, but when I looked up again, I saw that he was merely waiting for me to raise my eyes. He said softly, with emphasis, "If the Chara is safe, then I am sure that everyone else in this palace is safe. As I said before, you are not a fool."

  He left then, but I continued to kneel beside the blood-stained rose for some time.

  o—o—o

  "I . . . am . . . dead."

  Peter pronounced these words with the solemn gravity of the Chara reciting a proclamation, and then flung himself down onto the reclining couch in his sitting chamber.

  I moved a vase of white roses onto the table next to him. "Here is your flower arrangement."

  Peter grinned up at me. "You always know ahead of time what I need. Have you prepared my funeral oration as well?"

  "You ought to have given me more advance notice. You will have to delay dying for a few weeks, so that I can have your clerk write it up for the records."

  Peter turned on his side to look at me. His hair was sun-bright in the golden light of the late-night fire beyond him. He was lying near the north wall of the chamber, which contained the hearth, his writing table, and the door to the free-servant's sleeping chamber. I had returned to the window that faced south and was standing by it, pulling some berries from the bowl I had laid on the sill.

  "You must have stayed to eavesdrop on the rest of the council meeting," Peter said. "That is exactly what Lord Dean told me. He seemed to think that I could arrange the timing of my own death in the same manner that I issue my commands. . . . Speaking of council lords, I met Lord Carle on the way here. He told me that he started a conversation with you this evening. He always tells me when that happens, though I have explained to him over and over that it is of no interest to me any more what goes on between the two of you, and that I am sure you and he can behave in a civilized fashion. Nonetheless, he struck me as having a particularly guilty look on his face tonight."

  I withdrew my fingers from the bowl and wiped them on a cloth nearby. "Lord Carle only reported to you half the story. Our conversation was a continuation of one we started this morning, when I burst in on his quarters unannounced."
>
  "What are you doing, training yourself to face danger in Koretia? What prompted you to do such a thing?"

  I folded the cloth into quarters, then into eighths, before saying, "I heard him disciplining his new slave."

  "Ah." Peter looked reflectively at me. "You mean Levina?"

  I jammed the cloth under the bowl to keep it from being blown away by the night breeze. "All-knowing Chara, do you have the names memorized of every slave in this palace?"

  "Probably," replied Peter cheerfully.

  "Then you are as much a god-man as the Jackal. How do you keep them all straight?"